Problems printing with Ricoh printer at work??

Hi dladders, welcome to the discussion boards, as my Father always told me, "Do your homework!" As you well know there are many moving parts to this puzzle. I assume nothing, I ask. Let's start with your work place, first. What type of interface between your iMac and the Ricoh printer? Is it wireless, if so, what type? Is it wired, if so, what type? Let's talk about your relationship with this iMac, Apple and AppleCare. Is this iMac your computer or do you own it? Do you own AppleCare? What level is your Apple/AppleCare Relationship, is it on a personal level or business level? If you go to the Apple in the Title Bar, click it, come down 1 slot to "About this Mac". Now go to the Mac OS X Version number, click it 2 times and you'll have the Mac's serial number, write it down. Now comes Snow Leopard, did you install it over Leopard? Now what do we do with this information, PLEASE, do NOT send it to me. Take the time to write it all down on a piece of paper, so you can have all of the information available to talk with the professionals.Talk with Apple by phone or go to one of the Apple Stores and ask for their assistance. There are Ricoh drivers from Apple Support, please talk with them.

Why be so risk adverse? The answer lies in the last two words of your subject, "at work??". If you notice, I'm only asking questions for you to have all of the right information. The main thing is to ask yourself, what if it fails? This is your journey, if allow it will teach much more than you can believe. It will never be anybody else's responsibility but yours. It is always your choice, GOOD LUCK!

Hey, dladders & welcome to the forums...

If you haven't already, install these & try again...

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL902

Hi there dladders.

First of all, in response to the reply from Nort, I suggest you don't waste your time contacting Apple. They know little to nothing about network office MFD's and you will probably just tell you to contact Ricoh.

As for KT's reply, this may be helpful although looking through the supported model list , there is no listing for the MP C4000 but there are other models, such as the Aficio MP C4500 PS, and this may work, providing your model has PostScript if it is optional.

Regarding the symptoms you have seen, there are several likely causes...

For only printing in B&W, if you created the printer queue using one of the supplied Generic PS or PCL drivers, then you will only get b&w printing. This is a known limitation of these system drivers.

The loads of blank pages is generally an indication that you have created a printer queue using PostScript but your printer only supports PCL.

The message re cannot connect could be related to the protocol used to create the network queue or an incorrect queue name was used if the protocol was correct.

To help you select the correct driver and network connection my suggestion would be to have a look at one of the Windows computers. This will show you which protocol they are using (RAW Port 9100 on Windows is called HP Jetdirect-Socket on the Mac) and if they are using a PCL driver or PS driver. The other thing to check is the machine itself. Some machines have a built-in web page which can you open by typing the machines IP address into your web browser. This can show you what print languages the machine supports and what print protocols are available. If you can't open the web page then see if you can print a configuration sheet from the machine. This should also provide information about supported protocols and print languages.

HTH

Pahu

The Ricoh MP C4000 can use the PCL 6/PCL PXL driver. It also has a PostScript option. My guess is that your company has not paid the extra money for the PostScript option. The first order of business is to get you proper drivers that we know will work. Ricoh provides the drivers contained in the OS X pxlmono package found at _ http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/macosx/pxlmon o_. These drivers will have all the options that your printer supports.

I would suggest that you first delete any and all printer queues you have created for the printer and start over.

To use the pxlmono drivers, download and install the three packages. Install Ghostscript, Foomatic-RIP and the pxlmono package in that order. You can then set up a printer via the Print & Fax preference pane using the driver for you device. PAHU is one of the networking experts around here, follow his advice for protocols. Ricoh generally recommends using the HP Jetdirect-Socket protocol for their printers.

Matt

Thanks for the help Matt. Do you know if the Apple provided download for Ricoh is worth getting or are they always better off with the pxlmono package? I was surprised to see all the supported Aficio models but I'm guessing that they are probably only providing PPDs.

Pahu

My suggestion would be to skip the download from Apple. It would be hard to make sure that you choose a compatible model. Also Ricoh only provides PostScript drivers for Mac OS X in the Apple download and on their own web site. I doubt that the PostScript option is installed in the OP's printer. Especially as it is an all Windows environment.

The first priority is to get dladders printing.

If we find that the PostScript option is installed, we can take a look at the PostScript driver for the MP C4000 that is on the Ricoh support site. It is labelled for OS X 10.5. It can probably be used, at least to a certain extent, with OS X 10.6.

Matt

dladders wrote:
OK, i typed in the printers IP address and it does have a web page. I've managed to get this info from it so I gather it doesn't have PS language installed:
...
Printer Language

Automatic Language Switching : 25.09
Customized PJL : 25.09
RPCS : 3.7.5.2.1
PCL 5c Emulation : 1.01
PCL XL Emulation : 1.01

Correct. The PostScript module is not installed in this machine. The pxlmono drivers I cited in my previous post is your best option at this point. They will use the PCL XL Emulation language cited in your output.

Matt

Hopefully PAHU or one of the other networking gurus will help out here. The only thing I can suggest is to make sure that you have it set up the same way as on one of the Windows computers in your workplace. You can double check the URL you are using for the printer by using the CUPS web interface. Open a browser to _ http://127.0.0.1:631/printers/_. Click on your printer. The printer page will show you the Connection:. Make sure that the URL is correct. It should be something like

socket://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:9100

Matt

Hello Dave,

A message like unable to connect generally indicates a network issue. I suggest you check that your Mac and the Ricoh are connected on the same subnet. If you open Network Utility and look at the Info tab, you will see what IP address is set/allocated to your Mac. Typically for a local network the first three sets of numbers is your subnet and the last number is your network address. To be able to communicate with the printer they generally need to be on the same subnet, unless there is some sort of routing being used. If the Mac and printer are on the same subnet then select the Ping tab in Network Utility, enter the IP address of the Ricoh and set the Ping number to 4 pings. This will either show a response from the printer or a failure to communicate.

Pahu